Glycolic acid (also known as 2-hydroxyacetic acid or α-hydroxyacetic acid) can be used for many purposes including as a raw material to make ethylene glycol. Glycolic acid is prepared by the acid catalyzed reaction of carbon monoxide and formaldehyde in the presence of water, alcohols, and/or carboxylic acids. These processes often require high temperatures and pressures to proceed at practical rates. For example, glycolic acid typically is prepared by reacting formaldehyde with carbon monoxide and water in the presence of an acidic catalyst such as sulfuric acid under high temperature and pressure such as, for example, above 480 bar absolute (abbreviated herein as “bara”), and between 200 and 225° C. Alternatively, lower pressures may be employed in the presence of hydrogen fluoride as a catalyst and solvent. These processes, however, require expensive materials of construction and/or recovery and recycling schemes for hydrogen fluoride. Furthermore, readily available formaldehyde starting material typically contains large concentrations of water that inhibit the rate of the carbonylation reaction. Aqueous formaldehyde also is present as a mixture of formaldehyde and oligomers and polymers of formaldehyde which does not allow accurate control of feed mole ratios (e.g. moles of water per mole of formaldehyde equivalents). The alternative of using dry formaldehyde entails the materials handling difficulty of feeding a solid reactant. Furthermore, formaldehyde in the feed readily breaks down to formic acid causing yield loss and making purification of the glycolic acid product difficult. Thus, there is a need for an alternative to the aqueous formaldehyde feed or dry formaldehyde feed (e.g., paraformaldehyde or trioxane) in the process for making glycolic acid that can be accomplished at moderate temperatures and pressures and allows for the ready separation of the glycolic acid from the crude hydrocarboxylation reactor product.